Inouye's footprint

12/18/12 10:45 AM EST

It’s hard to overstate the enormous role the late Sen. Daniel Inouye played in Hawaii’s public and economic life.

His political stature was comparable to Robert Byrd in West Virginia or Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, and as an appropriator and state founding father his footprint was as large as Ted Stevens’s in Alaska.

The front page of Hawaii’s Star Advertiser newspaper offers an idea of the Democrat’s far-reaching impact on the state landscape.